21 October 2016

Drawing The Right Blueprint For The Orioles' 2017 Roster

Over the next couple weeks, Camden Depot will be offering a series of offseason acquisition blueprints for the Orioles to follow from our stable of writers (attn: Dan Duquette, these are free to use). At the end of the series, Jon Shepherd will review the different plans and choose the direction that makes sense for the franchise (attn: Peter Angelos, I am available to be a General Manager, Major Domo, or whatever you wish to call that position these days). Under consideration are choices in handing out Qualifying Offers, releasing players, free agent targets, and finding a way to fit within what a realistic, though a bit generous budget of 160 MM (counting deferred money just to make things easier). Readers, oh readers, if you feel the urge to write in a plan, send it to CamdenDepot@gmail.com. Do it well and we just might highlight you as an outside consultant in a post.

This batch of free agents surprised us at the Depot because it overshot our budget estimate by about 35 MM, which was partially absorbed by Matt Wieters saying yes to the QO. It was the first major step up in payroll for the club in years. With a much smaller budget, I went with 1B being an overlap of Steve Pearce and Byung Ho Park. Compared to Davis, this decision at the moment looks pretty favorable for me. Davis had an fWAR of 2.7, but Pearce/Park managed 2.1 on about 200 fewer PAs and at half cost. Anyway, Park faded quickly and went to the minors while Pearce returned to form as a top notch hitter who was only undone by the Orioles forcing him to play the outfield with a bum arm.

For the corner outfield, things would have been interesting. The Orioles chose to go with Kim and Trumbo, which was actually a rather modest success. I think if the Joey Rickard experiment went better it would have been a solid option. Instead, the corner outfield positions produced about 2.8 fWAR total, which means below average production. My idea was to bring on Ben Zobrist and Matt Joyce while also sprinkling in some Steve Pearce and maybe Jonathan Schoop. Zobrist wound up supposedly ignoring teams that wanted to place him anywhere other than second base, so this might not have been the easiest thing to pull off.

For Joyce, the Pirates found that he and the outfield is like oil and water. He was simply terrible out there even though his bat was pretty remarkable. He got in 140 games, but averaged only two PA a game. That is an old school professional hitter for you. He would have slotted over to designated hitter once his fielding issues became more obvious. Zobrist would have been a godsend for the club. He would have been the second best player on the team with an fWAR of about 4.0. Who knows if the club could have convinced him to play right field or if Jonathan Schoop could have adapted to that position. But it bears saying that Zobrist alone significantly outperformed what the Orioles put together for the outfield.

Finally, pitching is where I screwed up. I went with Mat Latos on a 1/9 deal. He was terrible. Though that was less terrible than giving up a draft pick and two years on a similar deal to Yovani Gallardo. Additionally, the club got a forgettable season by Darren O'Day. I consider this a win as well.

What is remarkable is that when you consider the positive contribution of Pedro Alvarez, the Orioles' offseason and this blueprint come in about the same. I give the nudge to our blueprint because it was about 20 MM cheaper and did not burden the club with questionable long term or multiple year contracts. In fact, our projection model put this club at an 89-73 record, which is exactly what the club finished up with.

If I knew the budget was another 20 MM above where we pegged it, what would I have done? Easy, my thought process would have led me to signing J.A. Happ and Scott Kazmir in place of Mat Latos. How would that have played out? Happ was a Cy Young candidate and would have been in contention with Tillman as being the best pitcher on the team. He would have made the club knocking on the Red Sox door for the title. Scott Kazmir would have really been the most desirable option for me, but he did not perform as well as Happ did. Still, he did better than what the Orioles often trotted out there. I would contend that such a roster probably would have overtaken the Red Sox, but maybe not.

In the end, you can see the final outcome was one that was actually pretty realistic and on similar terms with what the Orioles wound up doing. Surprising to me, I think the plan we came up with at Camden Depot was a better plan than what turned out as the Orioles' final club. Certainly, some differences could have push the Orioles over, such as securing Dexter Fowler. That move would have put our plan and the Orioles' actions on equal footing when you would consider our additions of Happ and Kazmir.

Who knows whether 2016 was just a lucky year for the Depot. Over the next couple weeks, we shall see what the writers come up with and what I wind up deciding.

9 comments:

Pip
said...

This is great. I went back and read several suggestions from last year and was surprised at how many wanted to release Gonzalez, which I thought was a terrible idea, correctly as it turns out. Gonzo went 5-8 with a good FIP and would have been more succesful than the Gallardo/Miley/Jiminez slop we were throwing out.Anyway, couple questions:1) If Rickard can add 15-20 pounds of muscle, can he improve to an above average hitter? His eye and contact seem to be fine, he just doesn't have any power.Is his defense fixable? He seemed to be improving as the season progressed.2) Was Joseph ruined by his injury? Such a severe injury can have lingering psychological effects. Or did he just return to what he really is, a no-I mean NO- bat good defense player?3) Finally, are there any players in the low minors who might justify a large promotion ?I suppose most of these queries will be dealt with in subsequent posts, but wanted to ask anyway.

One thing to consider when measuring the Depot against the O's FO is that the O's successfully signed the players you're using in the comparison and someone else signed the players Depot recommended but didn't sign. The key possibility was Fowler. Signing him would have negated the need for Alvarez and put Trumbo solidly at DH. That might have made the offense slightly better but would have made the defense a lot better and might have made the pitchers look better too. Any one of us would have loved Happ from the beginning but no one thought the O's would pay him (and maybe that is just what happened - he signed before the O's were willing to pay). We liked Hill and Kazmir, too, but I bet they didn't want to mess with the O's physical. Neither ended up being worth the money (Hill spent way too much time on the DL). The only truly bad signing was Gallardo and we all agreed it was bad from the beginning. I still think it was best to let MiGo go. He played well for a Sox team going nowhere. Would he have been as good in OPACY or in a pennant race? Idunno, but maybe not.

Also, whatever DD did last year has set the O's up pretty well for this year. A bad pitching FA market so not much to spend on. Can focus on arbitration and extensions. The best "pickups" we have going into next year are Bundy, Hart, and Mancini. Maybe Gallardo can turn it around some. Maybe Caleb can too (or Pena can show us something). Sign Bourn for defense and speed and pick up another Rule 5er (Logan Verrett (sp) would have been a nice Rule 5 keeper). Really, to me, this is a "stand pat" year except for losing Wieters, Trumbo, and Alvarez. Maybe we can see what Jayson Aquino or Chris Lee have up their sleeves. Sure would like to see the O's pick up Tommy Milone.

Jon, I just meant when comparing which plan was better, there is no way to know if the O's could executed the Depot plan successfully. The way I read the article was that the comparison was being drawn assuming the Depot plan could have been executed. There has to be some factor of improbability included when thinking if the Depot plan was better. I don't think Happ, Hill, Kazmir, and maybe even Fowler were ever even possible for the O's to get. We don't really know what went on behind the scenes.

being an eternal optimist, there is no guarantee that Trumbo leaves, altho it's probably 99 44/100 % sure. i have a feeling he ends up in Boston to replace Papi. looking forward to this years plan.was great reading last year.

Little Gonzo was a batting practice pitcher in 2015, and spring training 2016! He was picked from the Mexican league, for "Chrissakes" as Earl would say. we caught lightening in a bottle for 3 years. we got lucky. There was NO PRESSURE pitching for the white sux, big difference. Let it go! Gallardo has had a HOF career compared to Gonzo!

The hindsight crowd right now is hilarious. Gonzo had some fans, but he was horrible for over a year. It was time to move on. The Sox put him in the minors and let him work on his stuff, then brought him up - an option the O's didn't have.

Also, the idea that Pearce and Park compare favorably is ridiculous. Park hit .224 in AAA..and only played in 62 games at the ML level, where he hit a horrible .191 with a .684 OPS. Pearce definitely raked with TB, but he only played 40 games at 1st. The FO plays people to play ballgames, not to perform well in small sample sizes. Just that suggestion alone wouldn't qualify you to be a GM.

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Jon Shepherd - Founder/Editor@CamdenDepotStarted Camden Depot in the summer of 2007. By day, a toxicologist and by night a baseball analyst. His work is largely located on this site, but may pop up over at places like ESPN or Baseball Prospectus.

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Patrick Dougherty - Writer@pjd0014Patrick joined Camden Depot in the fall of 2015, following two years writing for Baltimore Sports & Life. He is interested in data analysis and forecasting, and cultivates those skills with analysis aimed at improving the performance of the Orioles (should they ever listen).

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